Indians in United Arab Emirates

It is not surprising that 2.4 million Indians are living in UAE today and hundreds of thousands of Indians visit UAE every year.

India UAE relation begun many decades ago… there was a time when Indian Rupee was UAE currency In the beginning to the middle of the 20th century, the Indian rupee was extensively used as currency in the countries of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula. To reduce the strain put on India’s foreign reserves by gold smuggling caused by this external use of the rupee, a separate currency was created. The Gulf rupee was introduced by theIndian governmentin 1959 as a replacement for the Indian rupee, for circulation exclusively outside the country.At the time, the Indian rupee was pegged to theBritish poundat a rate of 13⅓ rupees = 1 pound.

Two states,KuwaitandBahrain, replaced the Gulf rupee with their own currencies (theKuwaiti dinarand theBahraini dinar) after gaining independence from Britain in 1961 and 1965, respectively. However, even today, in Bahrain 100 fills (one tenth of aBahraini dinar) are referred to inArabicas a rupee in common parlance. On 6 June 1966, India devalued the rupee. To avoid following this devaluation, several of the states using the rupee adopted their own currencies.Qatarand most of theTrucial Statesadopted theQatar and Dubai riyal, while Abu Dhabi adopted theBahraini dinar. Only Oman continued to use the Gulf rupee, until 1970, with the government backing the currency at its old peg to the pound.Omanreplaced the Gulf rupee with its ownrialin 1970.